Colleges offer sustainable degrees

By Amber Fagan

As a graduate student at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, I am especially eager to see how the campus is working towards a greener future.

Since 2001, ODU has started to implement many green initiatives, including several courses and degree programs. Currently, ODU offers a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Health, which is accredited by the National Environmental Health Science and Protection Accreditation Council.

“Environmental health specialists are responsible for education, consultation, and enforcement relating to local, state and federal laws, regulations, and standards governing the safety and sanitation of air, water, milk, food, solid, hazardous and infectious wastes, sewage, housing, institutional environments, and other health hazards,” the website for the Environmental Health Degree program states.

A course offered in 2007, the New Portal to Appreciating Our Global Environment (or NewPAGE), encouraged all incoming freshmen to analytically examine some of the world’s major environmental problems. The course was very popular among incoming students and the university expects to launch new multidisciplinary courses that are outgrowths of NewPAGE topics in the near future.

NewPAGE has spawned awareness among students to reach beyond their classrooms for the environment. In 2006, sophomore Carl Pucci, along with about 30 other ODU students from a NewPAGE section, launched SURGE, Students Undertaking Responsibility for the Global Environment. This organization helped to organize ODU’s Earth Week celebration in 2007, introduced an international environmental film festival, and worked to implement other green initiatives around campus.

But other colleges around the country are starting to offer courses in sustainability and green degrees. For instance, The New School, located in New York City, launched the Tishman Environment and Design Center which aims to draw upon a holistic approach to studying the environment.

“In a democratic society, we have an obligation as citizens to be environmentally literate in order to participate in some of the great debates of our time and to affect change on a local and global scale,” said Bob Kerrey, the president of the New School.

Yale University is creating a new joint degree between the Architecture School and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, which strives to create more harmonious connections between people and the environment. Also, New York University, Chatham College and Oklahoma University are just a handful of degree granting institutions that offer courses and programs in environmental advocacy.

And with global climate change being such a hot topic, a broad spectrum of employment opportunities are available to graduates of environmental programs.

Graduates have found positions in local, state and federal health and environmental agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, NASA, and the Department of Defense.

Others work in hospitals, industries, insurance companies, laboratories, consulting firms, waste and wastewater plants and other organizations, agencies and firms.